Don’t let go of your objective - 5 ways to refocus on your goals.
On any given day, you are dealing with hundreds of situations; some you have predicted, but many you have not. These situations multiply when you are in a relationship and if you have children. At any given moment, someone or something will show up to pull you away from what you were doing. Sometimes the situations are pleasant and other times. They are not so pleasant. The unpleasant situations can knock you off your plan, the plan you worked so hard to create and desire to follow to get to your goal. Examples of these unpleasant situations include:
You got a call from your child’s school asking you to pick up your child.
You received an email from your child’s teacher that your child has brought up some sensitive topic in their class.
Your teen is begging you to let them go to Great America with their youth group.
Your spouse had to stay late at work.
Your kids are fighting with one another.
These situations require your attention, and they are often emotionally charged. They make you feel upset, frustrated, tense, uneasy, irritated, annoyed, overwhelmed, and anxious. Because of these situations, you have to create space to deal with them, and therefore you have to squeeze in other tasks or forsake them to deal with the situations at hand.
Some tasks just kept getting pushed to tomorrow, and they piled up. You feel pressured to get them done, and it is a paralyzing feeling.
What’s worse is that these situations and their emotions don’t stop when you finish dealing with them. They create an emotional residue that lingers as you transition back to your original plan. You find yourself thinking back to the situation, and you feel the feeling that bubbles up to the surface as you think back to those moments. It derails you even more because you are distracted.
If you want to get back to reaching your goals, then you have to lead yourself to refocus on them. Here are five ways to help you refocus on your goals.
Step away from the environment that you deal with your situation: if you are able, take a walk, get up, and change your spot or drive somewhere. Your environment reminds you of the situation, so get out of that environment for a moment.
Schedule a time to revisit the situation if needed: Most emotionally charged and draining situations are not one-and-done. They need to be revisited and resolved. It is okay to say to the people involved that you need to reschedule and you will revisit this at a later time. Masterful educators do this really well. In the middle of the lesson, the educator may say to a student, “Let’s work on this after we finish the lesson.” and the educator loops back with the student during independent or small group work time. Some educators even sacrifice their break time to resolve tense situations with students.
Make a recording: If you are the type of person who needs to process your emotions out loud, record yourself using voice memos. The act of verbalizing your feelings can help you regulate your emotion without burdening someone with your emotion. Check your surroundings before you start venting to your phone in case the person you are talking about hears you recording yourself.
Journaling: If you are an internal processor, journaling can be very helpful in formulating your thoughts and exploring your emotions. You can dump everything into your journal and let it carry the weight, so you don’t have to.
Remind yourself of your values: Ask yourself what is really important to you. What are your values? Use this sentence structure to help you verbalize your value: “It is really important for me to… “ Self-talk helps people regulate themselves, so talk to yourself about what is most important to you.
Unpleasant situations will happen because you live and interact with human beings. Everyone is different, and no one is perfect. So there are bound to be unpleasant situations. But you can help yourself by leading yourself to focus on your goals, so you do not lose your objective.
